Skip to main content

Get Out of Gaol Free


Acts 16:16-34 

 When Paul is telling us about the dangers he faced he’s often quite understated and matter of fact. It’s interesting, therefore, to hear Luke’s first-hand account of one of those experiences in this passage from the lectionary readings for May. Here Luke spares us no details and spells out the drama of the situation in the most lurid terms.

 Notice the arresting way in which the slave girl describes these early Christians. They are not servants of God, with rights and privileges. They are not entitled to be protected from danger. Instead, they are ‘slaves’. Slaves have to do unquestioningly whatever their owner tells them. This includes putting themselves in harm’s way and doing dangerous things.When Paul responds by healing the girl, her divinations about him and Silas are proved true. Luke, of course, escapes, no doubt grateful to be push aside as they are dragged before the magistrates, attacked by the mob and then beaten with rods, the traditional Roman punishment for disturbing the peace.Not content with giving them a severe flogging the magistrates also throw Paul and Silas into prison, perhaps for their own protection. 

 And there further dangers await when an earthquake strikes which is so severe that it shakes the prison to its foundations. Whether it’s actually the earthquake which rattles open the doors and frees the prisoners from their chains, or whether the prison guards release them out of compassion, we’re not told. Either way, the earthquake would have been taken by many prisoners as the perfect opportunity to make good their escape. 

 Not so, Paul, of course. If this is God’s idea of a ‘get out of gaol free’ card he refuses to take it, and perhaps it’s his earlier steadfast witness in prayer and praise to the other prisoners which persuades them to stay put too. Christianity isn’t a passport out of danger, it’s a ticket into danger and difficulty for Jesus’ sake. If Paul and Silas had not resisted the temptation to escape they would have missed the opportunity to convert the gaoler and his family to the new faith.Are we ready to face challenge and danger too, in order to grasp the opportunities which it might bring in our own lives and in the life of the Church?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I don't believe in an interventionist God

Matthew 28.1-10, 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 I like Nick Cave’s song because of its audacious first line: ‘I don’t believe in an interventionist God’. What an unlikely way to begin a love song! He once explained that he wrote the song while sitting at the back of an Anglican church where he had gone with his wife Susie, who presumably does believe in an interventionist God - at least that’s what the song says. Actually Cave has always been very interested in religion. Sometimes he calls himself a Christian, sometimes he doesn’t, depending on how the mood takes him. He once said, ‘I believe in God in spite of religion, not because of it.’ But his lyrics often include religious themes and he has also said that any true love song is a song for God. So maybe it’s no coincidence that he began this song in such an unlikely way, although he says the inspiration came to him during the sermon. The vicar was droning on about something when the first line of the song just popped into his ...
14 comments
Read more

Luther and Loyola

James 1:17-27 Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Within Christianity there has always been a tension between two poles. At one end of the spectrum stands Martin Luther, who said that Christian faith is about trusting in God to put us right - or make us righteous - through the saving death of Jesus. Luther came to this conclusion when he was a professor of New Testament studies in a little town in Germany called Wittenberg. One year he decided to teach his students about Paul’s letter to the Romans and that’s when it suddenly dawned upon him that Christian faith is all about trust. At the other end of the spectrum , stands someone like Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Society of Jesus. He spent a lot of his later life in crisis, first struggling to overcome severe wounds that he had suffered when he was a soldier and then during two short periods locked up in a cell by the Spanish Inquisition. He came to believe that the Christian life is a similar sort of struggle, a lifelon...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sharing the Good News With People of Other Faiths

Together with other local Christians, clergy and lay people, I find myself – from time to time – giving thought to how we share our Christian faith with people from other religious backgrounds. It is a ticklish issue, because converting from one faith to another is a huge decision to make and it may not be appropriate for everyone. Becoming a Christian is always a life changing event, but for someone from another faith background it can sometimes cause immense dislocation and hardship, including estrangement from family members and friends who cannot accept their decision. It may even cut a person off from their entire cultural heritage, so it is not something that we can expect people to enter into lightly or thoughtlessly. Nor is it likely to be easy for them to make a gradual progression or pilgrimage to Christian faith. At some point they may have to choose whether or not to make a radical break with their past, unless they decide to be secret or closet believers. And they may deci...
2 comments
Read more